Reins of Time
by SnowWolfeh12
Summary: Ally's parents were murdered over a month ago and the case has grown cold. Being under-age, she must go to live with her grandmother while her horses are going to be sold! She must take the reins and discover the truth about her parents before time is up!
1. Preface

How are you suppost to feel when you loose someone close to you? I don't know which to feel; sadness or fear?  
Staring down at the bodies that once held the spirits of my parents, I feel emptiness and the shock is still there too. Slowly, I kneel down beside my father's head and desperatly feel for a pulse with my fingers, like they do in crime shows.  
Retracking my fingers from his cold neck, I try my mother. Before reaching her, I observe my hazy surroundings. To the left of my father's head rests a scarlett pool of blood leaking from a gun shot wound to the skull. Looking down at my mother, I can tell immediately that my mother had been strangled.  
Besides the obvious blood strain from the corners of their mouths, the whole scene looked oddly wrong. I frowned and thought it over. My father had been shot, my mother's neck and wrists bore bruises suggesting resistance to avoid strangle and something else I couldn't put together - I was still alive!  
All flesh and blood. Still had a pulse. Still held life inside. Still fighting. Still wanting answers.  
I had no way to decide what happens next, but I was sure of one thing; I wanted the truth and I wanted it now!  
Suddenly, I turned my head and blinked, seeing something move. A dark figure slid out from under the bed and a silver handgun stuck to its side. Panicing, I tried to stand. Closing my eyes and shaking my head, I tried to clear my head. Reopening my eyes, I find nothing and the world closes around me and I fall into blackness.


	2. Chapter 1

Sometimes all I do is wonder whether this is a dream or I'm dreaming in reality. And having bright, dappling sunshine streaming down my face doesn't help. Standing with my dung-crusted boots inside the barn, I find myself with ones of my own. And I don't mean humans. Horses. I feel at home with these wonderful creatures. In their hooves, I feel free. I smile at the broad brown face staring straight right through me. Scratching its nose, I feel it move with my fingers as if dancing to a groove. With my free hand, I part my hair to the other side of my head and begin to giggle as its whiskers tickle the back of my hand. I wonder if it can understand me as I begin to speak to it.  
"Whisper, you love me don't you?" I asked the dark Palomino.  
The horse bobbed its head up and down.  
_I stand corrected._ I thought wide a grin.  
Opening the stall door, I walked in and took Whisper by his halter. With my free hand, I pushed the stall door father out of the way. Whisper's hooves clicked on the wood floor as I lead him out of his stall. I clipped him to cross ties and began to brush his back down with a brush. Whisper held his head high and had his rear foot relaxed. When I finished with his back, I moved to his belly and chest. Hair flew everywhere and I sneezed.  
Whisper let out a neigh that I took as laughing. I laughed too and nudged him the way I always did when he did that.  
Now, I believe, you the reader of this story deserves an introduction of myself before we can go any farther. My name is Aly. I am sixteen years old and I live on a horse farm in Nevada. My parents were murdered two weeks ago and I still feel the emptiness and the loneliness, even though I have five wonderful horses to keep me company. I'm still searching for answers to my parents' mysterious murder, but I've come up empy so far.

Whistling annouced the arrival of the mail. Dropping the curry comb which I had been using, I raced out of the barn to the mail box. Being slightly rich, our mail box can be considered big enough the a Great Dane could be head-level with it. Opening the door, I take out one vanilla envelope. Having no idea what it contained, I opened it on my way back to the barn. As it reached it, I pulled out a letter, neatly typed and a signature at the bottom. Standing next to Whisper and reading the letter, my heart sank and my face turned pale. Whisper saw me and let out a neigh of alarm and pressed his large nose into my cheek. I turned and looked up at him with tears in my eyes.  
"You're going to be sold!" were the words that barely escaped from my mouth. Dry and barely autible.


	3. Chapter 2

I still think I can hear my horses' protesting neighs when I fell asleep that night. My dreams were filled with desperate screams of horses and the plees from my parents I hadn't heard. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that whoever the killer was, hadn't counted on anyone witnessing anything. Though I hadn't I swear I heard something that could point to the answers. I opened my eyes and sat up in my bed. The moonlight that splashed through my curtains, lit my face and the room. I wracked my brain as I thought about the night of the murder. I had been in my bedroom, studying. I had my head phones on and the light dimmed. The weird thing is, my room is directly across from my parent's room. Maybe the fact my door was shut had something to do with it? I didn't know.  
I ran my hand though my hair. I just HAD to figure out the reason why my parents were killed and why I was still here. Then, something hit me. Frowning, I pulled the covers off my bed and gingerly placed my feet on the hardwood floor. Standing, I walked around my bed and to the door. I turned the knob and walked onto the carpet and into my parent's room. Where my parent's bodies had laid, everything had been cleared and clean. I decided to lay where my father had laid. Carefully, in my head, I ran through the things my father would have done that night and what would have led him to end up on the floor. I pictured my father, a large, muscular man of about six feet walking from the bathroom to the bed. I could clearly picture my mother still in the bathroom, brushing her teeth.  
I stood and turned towards the door, picturing the killer, probably in a dark hood, walking in. He confronted my father about something. They began to argue. My mother finished brushing and walked out of the bathroom, hearing the commotion. She came to stand by my father, just as the killer pulled out a silver hand gun, like the one I thought I'd seen. I stood back from the bed, watching the scene I thought happened, go on. The killer pointed the gun at my father, who put is hands up in defence. My mother's eyes widened in fear and quickly came and stood between them. The killer grabbed my mother and put his arm around her neck. She tried to fight him, but he was stronger and was over-powering her. He continued to point the gun at my father til my mother had interveined. He then pointed it at my mother's head. My father got scared and dove for her. The killer turned the gun on my father, shooting at my father's skull.  
As my father fell to the ground, dead, my mother looked up at the killer and though her useless words were muffled, I could hear what she'd said loud and clear.  
"Jeffery, please."  
The killer looked down at her. The overhead light made his face glow and I could see is face as well as fear and pain in his eyes. In a flash, the fear was replaced with fury and he wrapped his arm around my mother's throat tighter. I watched as my mother slowly began to fade. The light in her eyes dimmed. And she slowly fell from the killer's grasp. I blinked and watched the killer turn and I could see him thinking about entering my room. Clearly, he'd thought otherwise and raced from the room.  
I took a deep breath and stared down at the empty carpet. _Maybe this was just meant for dad._ I thought. _But what had he'd done to deserve this?_  
All I hoped was that in time, I'd find out what.


End file.
